Question:

"We have a Women's Ministry in our church. We are having trouble keeping up our weekly attendance.... If you have any ideas I certainly would appreciate your sharing with us."

Answer:

You asked about weekly attendance for your women's ministry. Ideas?
Humbly I say I have had a lot of experience leading women's ministries and getting a commitment is not easy. Here are some things that I have learned and used:

• Give everyone you possibly can a title. (i.e. Prayer Chairman, Contest Chairman, Missionary Chairman, Others Officer, Food Chairman, Shut-in Chairman, Decorating Committee, etc, and all can have assistants. I squinted my eyes when a wonderful Christian lady encouraged me to do so....and it did help.
• As the leader I made sure I constantly sent 'luv' notes to my women...thank you's, praise notes, poems, etc.
• Run contests for attendance, letter writing (i.e., shut-ins or missionaries), visiting shut ins, doing whatever you can think of. It was incredible to me to see ladies try so hard for a bag full of goodies from the dollar store....or a gift certificate for her and hubby (or a friend) for a restaurant. Make fliers for these contests--cute and colorful for her to put up on her refrigerator. Someone suggested that this works well because we all want a chance to be a little girl again and we seldom get one. I am sure competition has something to do with it.
• Provide a nursery for babies and toddlers. My missionary circle paid for this by selling Current Cards at the beginning of the circle year. We made enough to pay the nursery workers for the entire year.

When there is a lull people lose interest.
I enlisted the help of creative women to keep the momentum going forward. i.e.

• When I had a large missionary circle we did a Christmas Country Fair every year to earn money to send to the missionaries. Everyone baked and made crafts, usually in a group setting. We grew united having a working focus.
• Current Cards out of Colorado has a great program for selling note cards, etc. many with scripture. They give the organization half of the sale price.
• We sometimes got two big jars and had a penny contest with a team contest based on attendance, bringing a visitor, etc. The losing team would serve a luncheon or dinner for the winning team. Funny thing...no one wanted to lose! Everyone had fun trying to win! And if they didn't attend a meeting they let the team down.
• I now head a women's counseling outreach and we are going to do 'Christmas "Hugs" From God'....baskets of gifts, cookies and fruit for the less fortunate. These will have a tract, information about our church and this counseling outreach. The teens from our church will help us make them up and deliver them and we will host a dinner for the teen group as they do so.
• If fund raising is not allowed then making things for shut-ins or missionaries, or the needy is a great Titus 2 woman focus that will keep the momentum of a group going forward.
• If my group was not really large I often had the meeting at a park or at a restaurant for breakfast (if it had a meeting room). I would also suggest a botanical garden or somewhere really fun.

I hope this helps...and please, write to me anytime. SharonM@titus2menandwomen.org

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